Calliope's Magic Library

Every Tarot Card: Two of Swords

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Two curved swords surrounding leaves, or flowers, or a similar motif. It's balanced, dangerous but still. Crowley called the card "Peace." Colman Smith depicted it as a blindfolded woman wielding two naked swords with the crescent moon overhead.

Astrology

The 2 of Swords is the first decan of the cardinal air sign, Libra. That decan is ruled by the Moon. This card inherits from that sign a focus on balance and and that planet a focus on change. Things wax and wane when governed by the Moon.

According to one popular ancient schema of applying gods to the decans, the Erinyes rule this decan -- the Furies, the metaphysical clean-up crew responsible for punishing those who offend the "natural order," or in other words, those who commit crimes that upset the balance of nature.

Elements

As a sword this is a card of elemental air, meaning it reflects ideas, thoughts, plans, strategems and the like. The sword is, as Crowley said, the scalpel wielded by the intelligence to divide and study.

Sword cards tend to be the most likely to be unalloyed bad news, as the mind brings suffering. In this case the card is not negative, but it reminds one that this peace, too, shall pass, with the shifting of the Moon.

Qabalah

All twos are associated with Chokmah, and if you vibe with this association, the wheel of the zodiac itself -- which I often read as the fixed stars, the layer in the spheres between the planets and the outer world. Chokmah is the first emanation out of Kether, and associated via the paths with the Fool, the Empress, the Emperor, and the Hierophant. Spotting any of these cards alongside the 2 of Swords can be an indication to pay attention to those relationships, and that sephirah, more closely.

Here, the card is the peace of the maker looking over the water that will soon be divided but is not yet so. It's a two, and so a duality, a realization that one is not one but many. The point of Kether becomes a line. Things can finally move in a direction, though not yet in all three.

Synthesis

The 2 of Swords can indicate a time of waiting, a need for balance, the Moon, preparation, or the thoughts behind an act of creation.

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